Tech and Amusing Stuff

“Microsoft Corp. today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Danger Inc., the company responsible for the software and services powering many popular consumer handsets. The acquisition will align Danger’s nearly 10 years of expertise in the mobile consumer space with Microsoft’s vision to provide innovative and compelling mobile experiences to a growing base of customers.

“Microsoft is a global leader with our Windows Mobile software and expanding mobile services,” said Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft. “The addition of Danger serves as a perfect complement to our existing software and services, and also strengthens our dedication to improving mobile experiences centered around individuals and what they like.”

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company provides services that allow people to keep in touch, stay organized and keep informed while on the go through real-time mobile messaging, social networking services and other applications ― all blended together on a single phone that is intuitive and customizable.

“Danger continues to provide an effortless and fun mobile experience for consumers,” said Henry R. Nothhaft, chairman and CEO of Danger Inc. “Now by combining our uncompromised application software and powerful back-end service with Microsoft, we can expand our innovative service offerings even further and take mobility to a new level.”

UPDATE: Enagdget is reporting that Microsoft presumably dropped 500 mill to snatch Danger, not confirmed by Microsoft yet though.

Original source

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Looks like the Microsoft purchase of Yahoo! is going to shake the industry no matter what happens. Now Yahoo! “is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft’s bid.” Apparently Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt called Jerry Yang to “to offer his company’s help in any effort to thwart” Microsoft’s effort.

Via Reuters

Microsoft proposed to Yahoo’s board of directors a $31 per share (a 62% premium over yesterday’s closing price) or about $44.6 Billion for a merger. Steve Ballmer, CEO sent out a letter to Yahoo with the proposal yesterday, he says: “We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.” The two companies have been dicsussing this matter since late 2006.

It also seems to be a response to Google’s threatening growth according to this part of the press release:

“Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers.”

Official press release

These are all great games, here’s a list if you would like to purchase any of them (through amazon.com)

Bioshock (Xbox 360, PC)

The Orange Box (Playstaion 3, Xbox 360, PC)

Rock band (Playstaion 2, Playstaion 3, Xbox 360)

God of War II (Playstaion 2)

Crysis (PC)

World in Conflict (PC, Xbox 360)

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, Playstaion 3, PC)

Forza Motorsport 2 (Xbox 360)

Halo 3 (Xbox 360)

“Microsoft Corp. said today that it would post the release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to its download site last tonight.

The final version of Windows XP SP3 remains slated for delivery sometime in the first half of 2008, the spokeswoman said. She also warned off casual users from trying the preview. “As this is a release candidate, we strongly encourage only those who are comfortable installing prerelease code to download Windows XP SP3,” she said.”

Story continues….

PC World has boldly declared Vista #1 in their Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007.

“It’s just that Vista isn’t all that good. Many of the innovations the operating system was supposed to bring–like more efficient file and communications systems–got tossed overboard as Microsoft struggled to get the OS out the door, some three years after it was first promised. Despite its hefty hardware requirements, Vista is slower than XP.”

More info

“In its first full quarter of sales, the iPhone has already climbed past Microsoft’s entire lineup of Windows Mobile smartphones in North America, according to figures compiled by Canalys and published by Symbian. That puts the iPhone ahead of smartphones running Symbian, Linux, and the Palm OS, but behind the first place RIM BlackBerry. The figures mesh with retail sales data already reported by NPD, which similarly described the size of the US market with a 27% chunk bit out by Apple’s iPhone.”

Story continues… 

 The $249 Zune 80 is Microsoft’s latest attempt to kick the iPod in the nuts, praying to crack Jobs’ titanium-diamond alloy cup through Wi-Fi features and a touch of divine intervention. CNET, Wired, Dean Takahashi, PCWorld and YahooTech struck first with reviews on the new device. Their verdicts? The cup has not yet been breeched, but Microsoft is making very solid improvements on the brand.  

PCMag We’ll just come out and say it: The 80GB Zune trumps the iPod Classic…For the same $250 price as the 80GB iPod classic, the new Zune 80GB offers a much larger screen, FM radio, wireless player-to-player sharing, Wi-Fi syncing with your PC, and a rear panel that can be customized with some cool artwork–for free. Simply put, Apple is no longer the leader in the realm of hard drive-based players. While the Zune 80GB and the iPod classic are both outstanding devices, the Zune has more features–and it’s more fun.

CNET The 80GB Zune cuts a much slimmer figure than its bricklike older brother. Measuring 4.3 inches high by 2.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep, Microsoft shaved some considerable bulk off the Zune’s thickness, while nearly tripling its capacity…we believe the latest crop of Zunes should finally take hold as a true iPod alternative. (83/100)

PCWorld All of the new Zunes are built around a rounded touch-sensitive control that also doubles as a clickable d-pad-style controler, much like the Click Wheel on Apple’s iPods. Flick your thumb up or down the pad repeatedly, and you begin to build up momentum while scrolling through long lists. At any time, you can tap to stop the scrolling, though it will eventually come to stop naturally. In my experience, it’s a very fun way to navigate through a music collection, even in a long view of artists on the 80GB player…All in all, the 80GB Zune is a decent choice as an 80GB MP3 player. (no score at this time)

Wired Video performance is very good, with the screen size really helping…Battery life didn’t meet the published specs of 20 hours for music and 4 hours for video with the Wi-Fi turned off. My rundown test on music was 18 hours, and video was 3.5 hours, which is, you know, fine…. Would I recommend the Zune? Yeah, I think I would. If you’re not invested in the iPod/iTunes ecosystem, it’s the most polished competitor I’ve used to date. Especially if you’re looking for a subscription service, the integration of player and service just crushes everyone else. (6/10)

YahooTech …the most innovative new feature on the Zune: wireless syncing. Setup was a piece of cake: you just connect the Zune to your PC via USB, fire up the Zune software, and enable wireless syncing under the Settings menu. If your system is already connected to a wireless network, those settings are transferred to the Zune automatically—no need to key in the access point name or password…automatic syncing only works when the Zune is plugged into its charging dock. Overall, I thought wireless syncing worked pretty seamlessly, and I loved being able to sync new songs and playlists over the air (why can’t the iPhone or the iPod Touch do this?)

Dean Takahashi The Zune Marketplace website looks better than iTunes because it feels less like a spreadsheet. It still uses the MTV Urge back-end but is completely redesigned…. All of these things represent improvements that allow Microsoft to claim that it is going its own way. Clearly, they aren’t copying Apple…At this rate of improvement, Microsoft will be a contender. But it has a long way to go before it keeps Steve Jobs up at night. - Zune fans should be happy with the improvements, but even more, that the big new features are software based and free for everyone.

Original story

Yesterday came news that Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook, valuing the company at $15 billion.

How much is $15 billion? It’s hard to understand how much money that really is. But this evening a friend helped put it into perspective in a conversation about the deal: among the pure-play U.S. Internet companies, only Google, eBay, Yahoo and Amazon have larger market capitalizations. Their annual revenues range from $6 - $11 billion/year. IAC, Salesforce, Monster.com and all the rest trail significantly.

Big Internet properties like MSN/Live.com, AOL and MySpace can’t be directly compared because they are part of larger corporations. Still, its easy to imagine that Facebook, at $15 billion, is perhaps worth more than AOL and MSN/Live.com. Is it worth more than MySpace, which was acquired for a mere $580 million in 2005? The total value of parent company News Corp., with $30 billion or so in annual revenue, is just $70 billion.

Of course, Facebook is not being valued by the public markets like the others. And it may be some time before there is any updated valuation for the company. They are now positioned with a huge war chest of cash (the actual amount raised is likely above $240 million; rumors of a hedge fund or other financial partner who put in additional cash are already swirling) and a massive stock valuation. They can make acquisitions of key technology and talent without spending much. And they can go for years as a private company on that cash. Even with the 700 employees the company expects to have next year, they shouldn’t spend more than $50 million or so per year to run the company.

Original story

“Moments ago I finished reading John Markoff’s New York Time’s piece entitled, “As Apple Gains PC Market Share, Jobs Talks of a Decade of Upgrades” and it added to my belief that the introduction of Leopard this Friday is going to mark the tipping point of Apple’s acceleration in the PC marketplace (disclaimer: I own a fair number of shares in Apple).

Much analysis and opinion has swirled around this coming OS upgrade — most positive and pleased with features — but I’m going to point out what I see as a deeper meaning behind some of the top features and why a tipping point will occur:

1) Time Machine: We all have the best intentions to backup but most of us just don’t. Now that many of us have both a desktop, a laptop, an iPod and many an iPhone too, keeping everything in sync is a friggin’ nightmare. As more new form factors arrive (like the rumored Mac tablet/multi-touch device/ultralight portable), keeping our data synchronized is going to be even more challenging. From what I’ve seen and played with in the developer version, this is going to be a laughingly simple backup and sync that normal non-techies will adore.

2) iChat: I just cannot emphasize enough what a game-changer this could be. Every single day I connect with someone that wants to show me something or have me show them. Videos, presentations, web sites and more are shared but it just isn’t easy. I have an atypical ability to communicate with all the available tools at my fingertips, but almost everyone I connect with gets frustrated because they can’t return the favor.

3) Parental Controls: If you don’t have kids (and especially a teenage boy like I do!) this isn’t a big deal perhaps, but the ease of setting this up, controlling access and some level of filtering is fantastic. I’ve actually delayed a purchase of a 3rd party application that does much of this in order to use Leopard’s…it’s that good.

4) Boot Camp: Though I run Parallels on my Mac with Windows XP installed, I’ve discovered that I almost NEVER USE WINDOWS for anything. There was a period of time where I absolutely required it, but as I write this I’m struggling to figure out what’s out there that I can’t do on my Mac. Still, I’ve loaded even old PC games in Parallels and it’s just too slow. My son and his pals are pumped for Leopard (two of them are PC users whose parents will buy a Mac but wouldn’t use a beta Boot Camp pre-Leopard) since they’ll be using the reboot-into-Windows capability to load the machine with games. This will be a game-changer (pun intended) since all PC games will run in a PC environment and a Mac can now be two machines for the price of one!

5) Dashcode: For power users and web developers, I believe this is going to be THE biggest and most important feature in Leopard. Why? Imagine libraries of thousands of widgets as well as every creator of application functionality has widgets as part of what they deliver. Most people don’t know what widgets are and don’t care. But for those that do, this extremely simple method of creating them is going to change delivery of applications and information on the Web.”

Original story

“The first generation 30GB Zune—which 1.2 million of you already purchased—is getting all the new Zune’s features. All. Sure, the new Zune is more of a half step forward than a completely new design. But Microsoft’s done something fantastic here by rewarding first gen buyers with cool new stuff that also happens to be free by software upgrade. And talk about spin— Microsoft just took a middling jump in hardware and turned it into a genuinely good move for loyalists (as well as a PR miracle). Are you paying attention Apple?”Original story